News
The Primate Genomics Initiative
The Primate Genomics Initiative (PGI) is a newly funded initiative in the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology. The goal of the PGI is to facilitate collaborative evolutionary genomics research projects between Duke researchers using nonhuman and human primate models across diverse fields by combining research, training and service. (find out more http://baa.duke.edu/primategenomics/) [more]Graduates
Congratulations to the Recent Evolutionary Anthropology Ph.D. Graduates: Jonathan Perry, Adam Hartstone-Rose, Meredith Bastian, and Nancy Barrickman. We wish them well in their future endeavors.You can find our Recent Graduates at....
Jonathan Perry, Instructor of Research Anatomy, Stony Brook University, Department of Anatomical Sciences, Stony Brook, NY. Adam Hartstone-Rose, Assistant Professor of Biology, Pennsylvania State University, Altoona, PA. Meredith Bastian, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Boston University, Department of Anthropology, Boston, MA.Leaving to Las Vegas
Congratulations to former BAA grad student and current Research Associate Dr. Todd Yokley. Todd will be joining the faculty at Touro University, Nevada as an Assistant Professor in the College of Osteopathic Medicine, Department of Basic Sciences. Dr. Yokley will be part of a team responsible for Gross Anatomy teaching. He will be taking up his new post July 9, 2007, after finishing the Summer Session I teaching of the Human Body. Best of luck in the future.Brain size and dimorphism in Aegyptopithecus
In a study published in the May 14 issue of PNAS, BAA's Dr. Elwyn Simons and colleagues including former BAA-er Erik Seiffert revealed surprising new results regarding brain size and sexual dimorphism in Aegyptopithecus zeuxis. Micro-CT scans revealed the brain size in this 29-million-year-old species to be smaller than earlier thought - maybe even smaller than that of a modern lemur - implying that the increase in brain size found in monkeys and apes to have developed at a later point in time. See News and Communications for more.Schmitt Gets A Golden Apple
Congratulations to BAA's Dr. Daniel Schmitt, winner of the Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Basic Science Instruction. Dr. Schmitt, judged by Duke Med School students to be original, invested and enthusiastic in his teaching, was given the award during the recent Medical Student-Faculty Show. Read more on the award and Dr. Schmitt's comments on this honor in INSIDE.Bodies...The Exhibition is Coming to Durham
The exhibition that has everybody talking about anatomy and the human body - Bodies...The Exhibition - is coming to Durham. The exhibit displays over 200 whole bodies and organs that have been meticulously dissected and artistically preserved. It will be at the Streets at Southpoint in Durham from April 4, 2007 through August 5, 2007. More information may be found here: The Bodies in DurhamGrad Student Awards
Congratulations go to BAA graduate students Randy Ford and Jonathan Perry who were both awarded Bass Advanced Instructorships for the 2007-2008 school year. Only five of these Instructorships were awarded in Arts & Sciences and two went to students in BAA. Terry Mitchell also was awarded a Stern Dissertation Fellowship for the 2007-08 school year. This speaks volumes to the caliber of our graduate students. Congratulations to Randy, Jonathon and Terry!Primate Anatomy - 3rd Edition
BAA is proud to announce the publication of the 3rd edition of Primate Anatomy: An Introduction (Elsevier, an Imprint of Academic Press, January 2007) by our own Friderun Ankel-Simons. The 3rd edition is entirely re-written with much new information added, including a new chapter on Primate Genomics. More information about the new edition can be found on the Elsevier website.Simons elected Fellow in AAAS
Dr. Elwyn Simons, James B. Duke Professor of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy and head of the Division of Fossil Primates, has been elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Simons was recognized for his outstanding contributions to paleoprimatology through groundbreaking field research on modern primate ancestors in Wyoming, Egypt, India and Madagascar. [more]Brain size and nutrition in orangutans
In a study published in this month's issue of the Journal of Human Evolution, BAA professor Andrea Taylor and colleague Carel van Schaik (chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Zurich and adjunct professor of BAA at Duke) document a relationship between nutritional resources and brain size in orangutans from the Indonesian islands of Borneo and Sumatra. Based on a comparative analysis of crania, Orangs from Sumatra - where food resources are more stable and of better nutritional quality - have larger brain sizes than those from the more resource-depleted neighboring island of Borneo. This work provides important empirical evidence in support of the "expensive tissue hypothesis," and provides important information about the links between diet and brain size expansion in human evolution. [more]BAA on the move!
For the first time since its inception in 1988, the Department of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy will be housed in a single building on Duke's west campus. The department's faculty currently occupy space on the second floor of the Alexander H. Sands, Jr. Building in the School of Medicine and in the west wing of the Biological Sciences Building on west campus - a divide of one-third of a mile that reflects the department's former administrative division between the School of Medicine and Trinity College of Arts & Sciences. Beginning in June 2007, the faculty and staff housed in the Sands Building will begin to move into space in the west wing of BioSci, with a target date of January 2008 for completion of the move. The unification of the department's faculty in common space will facilitate collaboration and intellectual exchanges between members of the departmental community (something that we have always been good at, despite the geographic divide!), and will serve to increase the amount of interaction between undergraduates and the faculty from the Sands building."Food for Thought" wins CIT grant
Dr. Ken Glander has received a $5,000 New Course Design Grant from the Center for Instructional Technology for his new course, "Food for Thought" (BAA 120). The course, which meets Tuesday and Thursdays from 2:50 to 4:05, was one of six courses campus-wide selected for support from CIT. The grant funds will be used to incorporate instructional technology into the course, and to evaluate the effectiveness of the instructional methods. For more information about "Food for Thought," visit the course synopsis page at the link below. [more]Welcome Dr. Joanna Lambert!
Dr. Joanna Lambert will temporarily join the BAA faculty as a Visiting Associate Professor for the 2006/2007 academic year. Dr. Lambert is currently an Associate Professor in the Departments of Anthropology and Zoology at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Her work focuses on the evolution of primate feeding biology and nutritional ecology; tropical community ecology (specifically primate-plant interactions); and conservation biology. Dr. Lambert will be teaching primate ecology (BAA 143) and primate conservation (184S) this fall semester. Welcome Dr. Lambert! [more]Dr. Rich Kay to lead NSF Physical Anthropology Program.
Starting in September, Dr. Richard Kay will serve as the Program Director of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Physical Anthropology Program. The Program is a part of the Behavioral & Cognitive Sciences Division of the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate at NSF, and awards more than $5 million annually for research in biological anthropology. While Dr. Kay's duties will have him in the Washington, D.C. area much of the time, he will remain a member of the faculty of BAA and plans to remain active in research. Congratulations to Dr. Kay, and best of luck to him in this important new role! [more]Brian Hare to join BAA faculty in 2007
Dr. Brian Hare, currently the Director of the Hominoid Psychology Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig, Germany), will join the Duke faculty in December of 2007, with a joint appointment in BAA and in the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. Dr. Hare earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University (2004), and is the recipient of the Sofja Kovalevskaja Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. His research concerns social cognition and social problem solving in hominoids and other anthropoid primates, and in various canids (from wolves and foxes to domesticated foxes and dogs). Please go to http://email.eva.mpg.de/~hare/ to read more about his work. [more]Dr. Rob Deaner headed to Grand Valley State Univ.
Rob Deaner who received his PhD from Duke's Biological Anthropology and Anatomy Department has been chosen to fill an opening at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, MI. Beginning in August 2006 Dr. Deaner will begin his duties as an Assistant Professor in Grand Valley's Psychology Department. Also in August, Rob and his wife Rachel, will be expecting the arrival of their son. They have a three-year-old daughter named Talora Rose. The family will be moving to Michigan at the end of June.Hanna and Yokley receive PhD's from BAA in 2006
Congratulations to Todd Yokley and Jandy Hanna on successfully defending their PhD theses. Jandy's doctoral dissertation was on "Climbing Energetics in Primates: Implications for Primate Locomotor Evolution". Todd's was titled "The Functional and Adaptive Significance of Anatomical Variation in Recent and Fossil Human Nasal Passages".Duke researchers name two new species of fossil primates
Former BAA graduate student Erik Seiffert, working with Duke paleoanthropologists Elwyn Simons and Prithijit Chatrath, as well as other researchers, described two new speices of fossil primate in the October 14 issue of Science.They said their findings firmly establish that the common ancestor of living anthropoids -- including monkeys, apes and humans -- arose in Africa and that the group had already begun branching into many species before 37 million years ago.
View the Duke press release, and an article in National Geographic Science News.